Another Secret of the Trade
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Though possessing magic, Daisy will have to enlist a more mundane assistance to help with her untidiness. Or: the fantasy AU.
1. Spring: A Dreamy State of Mind

When it was finally confirmed that Luigi hadn't a spot of magic in his entire body he wasn't deterred. The childhood dream of becoming a wizard morphed itself into at least helping a magical person via cleaning up their messes – there had to be a lot with spells and ingredients – and a small, lingering wish that there was at least a pinprick of magic in him.

This was something that he reflected on as he went to the town nearby his hometown. There was a wizard that requested an apprentice and Luigi figured that a housekeeper would sort of fill that role.

The coastal town was closely packed in, and Luigi finally found the house of the wizard tucked tightly in an alley.

When he got to the top of the stairs and knocked on the door, however, there was already an apprentice and a housekeeper besides. The housekeeper was older than Luigi had ever seen, with a tempered regal look in her wrinkled face, but she still regarded him kindly and gave him some money. He was then advised to go to the bakery and buy a cream cake for himself.

At the bakery he found out about a magical school that may need some assistance, so Luigi used the cream cake as an impromptu lunch as he raced to the school, far from the coastal town.

He found the school by its arch made of vines, and found through talking to a student that the school, too, had no need of a housekeeper – there were already fae under employment at the school.

"But there's a witch that lives in a forest a couple days' worth away from here, to the north!" the student exclaimed. "She's always looking for some monster, so she said she wants a housekeeper. The forest has pink leaves, and her house in right in the middle of it. She has a sign with her name's flower on it, it was… sunflower, no…"

"I'll know when I see it," Luigi said reassuringly. "Thank you."

There was a town just before the forest, and Luigi replenished food supplies and bought a box of tea as a gift.

The path to the house was well-worn, and he found a sign with a faded painting of a daisy on it; the flower was small and crudely painted. The house itself was a modest cabin, with a paltry garden underneath a window. The door was decorated with the rings of the tree it was crafted from.

Luigi gathered up all his courage and knocked on the door and it quickly fled in one breath when the door opened.

"Hello, hello," Luigi said, and the rest of it came out in a fast tumble, "I'm here for the house, housekeeper position?"

The neutral look on her face became an interested one, and Luigi hoped it wasn't for the heat he could feel in his cheeks.

"You can come in," she said, "What's your name?"

"Luigi," he managed after a few tries.

"You probably already know mine by the sign," she said. "Some kids made it after I caught frogs for them."

"Familiars?"

"No, just regular frogs to look at," Daisy replied.

She let him step in, and it entered to a kitchen. From what he could see there was a kettle on a metal stovetop; the stovetop was equipped with a small amount of fire magic but had the option of regular fire if needed. There was a table nearby with two chairs, and he took the one close to the stove.

"Sometimes it does get messy here," Daisy admitted as she settled down into her own chair. "The spare room is more of a spill-over for things I need to organize so you'd have to help get that sorted."

"I can do it," he said. The mental image, of jars filled with old potions precariously balanced on discarded books and rotted ingredients on the floor, was daunting but it wouldn't take much more than a good scrubbing and organization.

"And if you're a housekeeper, you'd probably have to make meals. And sometimes villagers come here for spices and the like, so you'd have to take care of that if I'm gone."

"I can do it," he repeated.

Luigi remembered, and took out the box of tea with, "This is for you."

She picked it up and examined it; "Thanks. I don't really know how to make this, though. I just end up with hot water."

"I can make it," Luigi said, and he got up to the stove. At her directions he got out two teacups and placed two tea bags into them. He refreshed the water in the kettle and waited until it boiled and he poured it into the cups.

"Now we drink them," Daisy said from the table.

"Ah," Luigi replied, "No, no. We let it steep."

As it did so Luigi found a fresh bottle of milk in a shelf kept cold by freezing magic. He let a little of it splash into the tea, and mixed them together.

"Here," he said as he presented them, and then settled back into his chair.

"Like I said, if you want to be the housekeeper here it's going to be tough," Daisy said. She drank some of her tea; her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes flickered to the liquid, and the rest of the tea was gone in one huge gulp.

"But that won't be a problem, right?" she asked, newfound hopefulness in her voice.

"Not at all," Luigi replied. His own tea was enjoyed slowly and he took the dirty cups to wash.

"So then when you're done we'll go clean the spare room," Daisy said, as she presumably walked to that spare room turned displaced items storage room.

"Okay."

As he washed the tea cups Luigi tried to think of ways that others had gotten a job just by making tea, coming up only with professional tea brewers.


	2. Summer: Our Shadows Grew up, Too

The guest bedroom turned storage room smelled greatly of must and overturned potions, and Luigi was looking for a way to actually step into the room without slipping on sheets of paper or empty bottles.

"Okay, so this uh," Daisy said, behind him, "This looks really bad now that someone else is looking at it, too."

A small part of Luigi was relieved. He'd heard of some wizards or witches that made their potions in the same bathtub as where they washed and how the potion residue stained everything like acrylic paint. Or the same that let the tears of a fae and the sludge of plant slime or whatever their area of magic dictated stain their clothes and didn't even care.

A room like this, in a small enclosed space, was much less daunting.

Even if he did cringe when he found that some potion had become so old that it exploded discretely in its bottle and dripped out to make a mark on the wooden floor.

"I got all the papers and books," Daisy called over, and he could see her begin to sort them into piles.

Luigi continued gathering up the potions and ingredients; he could have an inkling of which were no good anymore but he needed a second opinion from someone who actually knew magic by heart.

Daisy finished her portion of work by placing a book stained with something or other, a grimace as she picked it up with her thumb and forefinger, into the pile that he assumed were for the damaged beyond repair.

"Can you fix them with your magic?" Luigi asked as he knelt down beside her, his arms filled with ingredients and bottles.

"Book repair magic? Rusty. Never was good at it," Daisy said. "And getting someone else to do it is expensive."

He nodded, and said, "Then I should throw them out?"

Daisy reached over to pat one of the spines of the ruined books and papers. "Sorry for this, books."

Luigi gathered them up, and walked solemnly to where the garbage was kept before being thrown out.

When he returned to the room the potions and ingredients were all declared decayed and stale of magic beyond measure and those joined the garbage as well.

"I have to be more careful," Daisy said. She was looking at the dust that coated the floor, save for the places where books and potions once stood.

Realization and then panic suddenly crossed her face, and she rushed to somewhere else in the cabin. Luigi went to the doorway and stood there awkwardly.

"Sorry, sorry," Daisy said, as she ran out of another room, holding a parcel in one hand and a broom in the other, a cloak draped across that arm. "I have to get this to a client."

"I can clean this on my own," he said, and at the reassurance Daisy visibly relaxed somewhat, and she rushed out the door.

It was just him and the quiet now. Presumably the only broom in the house was taken as a magical transportation device, so he was left to clean the dust on the floor with water and cloths.

It was certainly less dangerous than sweeping; the way how the dust look here it would've been blown up into clouds. It gave much more time to think. Wonder how big that school actually was, how good that cake tasted and that he should've savored it more, that this room would look very nice when it was finally clean, and how surprised he was when someone like Daisy opened the door.

And then, a quick loud little thought, "She's _really_ pretty," and he scrubbed at the floor more vigorously.

When the room was presentable, and he could actually see a bed and a table and dresser in here he went to pull the mattress off so that it could get some air.

Luigi found a basin and washed the dusty coverings, hanging them up outside to dry in the sun alongside the mattress. When he was done he took a look at the garden under the windowsill. There were a few plants to eat and a few to use as medicine and in spells. He wondered if he could help in expanding the garden, if Daisy so wished.

There wasn't much to do now so Luigi went to place his own belongings into the room. When it was done, so were the bedding materials and he placed them in their proper places.

Then it was nearly dark and he began to prepare dinner – a simple dish with carrots and lettuce and weak tea alongside them.

He was finishing with setting the table when Daisy made it home. When she opened the door she stepped back a little.

"Oh, right. You're here, now," she said, some relief in her voice.

"Welcome back."

It was only a month later, when the spring air became heavy and humid with summer, that Luigi was glad that he wound up here.

Daisy came down with a case of cold, something magical-based. It was the sort that made blue stars dot her face like precarious freckles one day, and make tiny flakes of ice fall from her eyes instead of tears the next.

On the fourth day, and when she was admittedly much better off, when she would cough pollen-like particles would float in the air in tandem. They smelled strongly sweet of apricots, an overwhelming smell for her senses at the moment.

Luigi would have the medicine and light food for her. On the fourth day's morning he made toast, relying on the fire magic already under the stove. On the first day of the sickness the fire fluctuated with Daisy's coughing. Luigi had to move the pan in and out of reach of the stove during that time.

The morning's breakfast was toast and medicinal tea. He held a jar of strawberry preservatives. It was something from home, one that he hadn't opened yet. It was something meant to be savored, and would bring all the memories of home that came with the taste. There was always a part of someone lost when their definition of home changed.

Luigi shook the gloomy thought from his head and opened the jar. He spread the strawberry preservatives onto the toast and closed up the jar tight.

He took the items to Daisy's room, and pushed on the door with his shoulder. He breathed out when he saw that there were no apricot scented pollen particles tormenting her.

"Breakfast," he said, as he gave her the plate with the toast.

"Thank you." Daisy began eating the toast, and Luigi settled into a chair that was brought close to her bedside.

"Are you feeling better?" Luigi asked.

"Aside from the apricot thing, yeah," Daisy said. "Just one more day of rest, I think."

She took a bite of the crust before something contemplative crossed her face.

"But tomorrow there's going to be a potion I need to make," Daisy said, "And I don't think I have enough of sunlight fern."

"Where is it?"

"In the forest nearby to the west but it'll take about half the day on foot."

"What if you run?"

A smile tugged at the sides of her mouth. "Then a quarter of a day."

"What does it look like?"

"Like a fern, but, well, the color of sunlight," Daisy said. "Are you…"

Luigi nodded.

"Thank you," Daisy said. "This makes it a lot easier."

"I don't think you'll like this," Luigi said as he lifted up the teacup. "Medicine. Drowsy tea."

Her face twisted up at the cup as she groaned. "You're right. I _hate_ that."

Daisy coughed, continuously, from something deep down in her lungs. He increasingly got worried, until she finally took a full breath, one after the other.

"You hate that, too," Luigi said as he swatted away the pollen.

She turned the unamused look to him and took the tea. She pinched her nose and swallowed the tea in one continuous go.

When everything was given back to him, Daisy moved so that she lay down in the bed, pulling the covers up closer.

"Be careful," she said to his retreating figure.

"I will."

It was noon when Luigi reached the forest and he realized then that he forgot to ask where it grew. But from the name he figured he won't have to guess.

The entrance to the forest was adorned with gnarled oak trees on either sides of the path, and the darkness was chased off by the sunlight that fell through the trees. It made him breathe a little easier.

There was merely grass and weeds and the turf of a forest as he walked and examined, until he came upon a cave. The great maw of it stretched upward, and Luigi's heart thudded hard and painful in his chest.

"If I had to go in there she would've told me," Luigi tried to reassure himself. He stepped around the cave and looked up at the stone, and spotted something yellow high above.

He could make out the leaves of a fern, growing out from the cracks in the rock, and so he set to climb. It was only halfway that a foot slipped and he gripped the rock harder, his breath coming out fast and frantic.

Luigi pushed with his loose foot for a safe place to put his weight, and found it; he could feel his heart beat pounding in his ears.

The fern was just out of reach and he resisted looking down. Luigi inched closer, carefully, and his fingers brushed at the fronds. They worked down until the stem was there and he moved his forefinger and thumb at the stem until it broke off.

The way down was more violent, as he skidded downward when he reached the halfway mark. He landed on his feet, and looked over the fern and then made sure the knapsack at the bottom wasn't damaged. Everything seemed to be in order.

He looked up at the sky, and saw that it was beginning to grow a reddish orange.

"Better hurry back," he said to no one, and he began running back to the entrance of the forest. When he was near the clearing something made him pause.

Luigi hadn't noticed when he first entered the forest but there was a flower growing at the base of a gnarled oak tree. It was a curious flower, drooping with colorful beads in the shape of petals, and the stem looked and felt like cloth.

Luigi ran a finger along one of the petals, feeling the beads roll, and with a swift pull the flower was in his hands. He placed it alongside the sunlight fern in the knapsack.

"I found it," he said when he entered her room, the knapsack on one arm and two plates in his hands.

"You saved me a whole trip," Daisy said and she reached out to take her dinner. Luigi sat down in the chair and let the knapsack slid off his arm gingerly.

"You wanna know something?" Daisy asked after she finished her dinner.

"What?" He looked up from his newly empty plate.

"So, you know, most kids dream about finding their magic," Daisy said, "So when I was little, I thought that if I found a dragon tooth I could be good at this. Great, even. But dragon teeth are hard to find, and they don't make you any stronger."

She hummed before continuing. "I just want to prove to the younger me that I can do it, you know? What about you? Anything like that?"

Luigi shifted uncomfortably. "I… don't have any magic."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Daisy said, "I mean, you're already gre – I…"

"I did have something like that when I was a kid," he said. She looked too overcome, and it wasn't good for someone with lingering sickness.

"What was it?"

While it was true that this whole other world was closed off because there was no magic within him, the source of the wish came from something a little more complex than dreams of making stars or firecrackers with the flick of a wrist.

An unbidden memory swept up, when Luigi and his brother were children and looked a great much more alike. Even back then there were whispers that he had no magic, while his brother excelled, and the quiet seeds of resentment began to sprinkle, that it wasn't fair that his older brother got all the magic and he had nothing.

Then the seeds were forever burned away before they could be forever planted, because the tears that were expected to come from Luigi fell down his brother's face. It was so unaccustomed that Luigi blinked blankly and then was thrown into a tight hug, as much as a child could do, and apologies about stealing all the magic without even knowing. Then, when the tears had dried, there was the resolve to find a flower, hidden in a foliage book, that would give him magic.

But the childhood resolution was wrong: it was just a rare flower with no properties to help. Now there was just that hope, to find that magic was only in a deep sleep within him and he could say to his brother, "Look, it's been here all along."

It was too much to say, now.

"I wanted to find this flower," Luigi said. "It looked like a sun the size of a button was in the middle of the petals, and the petals were all the colors of the sunset."

"I know that," Daisy said. "It's pretty rare here, but it's been seen here more than anywhere else."

Then something crackled in his mind, a reminder, and Luigi reached for the knapsack.

"The sunlight fern," he said. The strange flower was in his other hand. "And this is for you."

Her contemplative look turned into a soft expression.

"Look at that," she said, "I've never seen something like this."

She turned to look at Luigi, a smile on her face. "Thank you."

There was something in her smile that made his heart tumble in over itself. The next few moments were in a blur, to clean up the plates and say good-night, and then to go to bed. It was imprinted on his mind.

The crickets outside made their summer night symphony. Luigi dreamed of Daisy in fields, looking up at the full moon that was against the dark, mystical sky. There were fireflies surrounding her and the crickets chirping in the tall grass. That same smile was gracing Daisy's face as she reached out her hand to Luigi.

When he took her hand the dream turned to darkness and he awoke with a quiet revelation humming in his head.


	3. Autumn: In the Rain

The summer revelation hadn't been spoken in that time, and it only remained a thought in the fall as well.

The days passed on just the same, and if Luigi didn't let his thoughts overtake then there were no internal berating to just gather up the courage and _tell_ her.

But one particular brisk fall morning nearly proved to get the better of him, so much so that Daisy looked on at him with a curious, worried expression.

"I never asked," Daisy said, her voice considerably light. "How'd you know about the housekeeping position? Is my name already that famous?"

Her tone at the end was enough to make him smile.

"Yes, but," he replied, "I tried to get a job at a school, and one of the students said she knew you."

"Which one?"

"A girl with long hair, and she had a small bun tied on the back of her head. She wasn't flying on a broomstick, I thought it was a little strange."

"Oh. Oh, _her_!" Daisy exclaimed. "I don't know her name, but I've heard about her, too. She tries so hard but she can't fly, her transformations are way off, her test scores are horrible, and everything else is just… poor girl."

In the brief silence he shared the sentiment; it wouldn't be easy to work tirelessly through subjects and fail hard, especially if the subjects involved magic.

"I'm not famous," Luigi said, "So what made you hire me?"

"Tea." There was a faint pink in Daisy's cheeks as she spoke again. "Nothing else. Nothing at all, so don't worry about it. No other reason."

It was a moment in which he should've grasped any courage within him and leap for the plunge. But the bravery faded from him and the words he wanted to say were washed away.

In his missed chance, Daisy got up from the table with her plate, left it in the proper cleaning place, and ran to her workshop. She left with her cloak and a wand in her hand.

"I'm going to collect foxglove," she said.

"Be careful of trolls near the cliffs," he replied.

"I will," Daisy said. "See you at dinner."

He waved and she left, leaving a pocket of self-deprecation to fully enter his mind.

"No, no, no," he chanted unenthusiastically. "None of that."

The daily clean-up and tidying helped to stave off the internal taunting words, and it wasn't until it was past noon that the process was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Luigi paused and went to the door, opening it slightly. There was a young girl standing there, her hands clasped together and she was nervously rocking on her feet. She didn't look like anyone from the village; even her clothing was different, a fluffy dress all adorned with frills and ribbons. Her short hair was tied up by a single red ribbon.

"Hello!" she called. "I'm here for my magical item pick-up, it should be under M.K."

An image of a bottle with the initials M.K. written on the corkscrew went through Luigi's mind. He opened the door wider.

"Come in," he said.

He lead her to the workshop, and began to look over the bottles for her item.

"So, this, this," M.K. said, "I've been, I love someone…"

Luigi looked back at her sympathetically. There was so much nervous energy bunched up in her face that he came to a hasty conclusion.

"Did someone place a spell on you so that you can never speak your true feelings?"

"Oh, not that, not that!" she exclaimed. "I want to say that I love her. _To _her. I, I just need some more courage."

"Don't we all," he thought wryly.

Luigi went back to the bottles and spotted the initials M.K. on a bottle where the head turned thin near the top. Now that it was in his hands he could distinctly smell something like honeysuckle.

"Here it is," Luigi said as he presented it to her.

"Thank you." M.K. replied. She took it, and reached into her pocket to give him the payment.

As he drew back his arm from accepting the coins his elbow bumped into a stack of notebooks on the table. The books fell loudly to the floor.

"Oh!" M.K. shouted. She started to kneel down.

"No, no," Luigi said, "It's okay. I can clean it. Don't want to waste any time in telling her, okay?"

M.K. got up and nodded, and he could hear the door shut close as she left.

"Take your own advice," he said quietly to himself as he gathered up the notebooks. He placed them back into stacks, and reached for one that had opened halfway on its tumble down.

From a cursory glance there were only Daisy's notes. They said things like, "Dragon teeth only taken from dead dragons, follow old one?" "Stay away from oleander," and "Keep this one cold."

It was almost legible, the straight lines too high and the curves not completely filled in, befitting someone writing them down very quickly.

There was something exponentially neater than any of the notes, near the bottom left page. It was in its own space, decorated with attempts at small, perfect hearts surrounding as a border. It was like the other, messier scribbles of words were keeping a polite distance because this neater rendition of Daisy's handwriting was important.

Unconsciously Luigi's eyes were drawn to it, especially so since he saw his name.

"Ah, Luigi, how wonderful  
To see a smile  
On your face  
It makes my heart race"

Luigi shut the notebook quickly, as if that would stop the words from being seared into his mind. There was a pinch of heat in his heart that spread out like a wave.

He would not say anything about this. He was very much sure that it wasn't meant for his eyes.

But some unconscious, anxious feeling was carried off, and a feeling of lightness was its replacement.

When Daisy came home that night, the hem of her cloak covered with bits of bramble, there was visible relief on her face when she saw Luigi.

"You look better than this morning," she said, some measure of tact lost in her relief. "I was worried."

"I'm glad you're okay, too," he replied.

"I was fine. Trolls don't seem to like the cold because I didn't see any," Daisy said. "It might start snowing soon."

"I'll make some warm dishes for you to try."

Luigi smiled at Daisy's enthusiastic cheering. There was enough courage, now, to tell her soon.


	4. Winter: The Whole World is a Blur

In the cold air Luigi had constructed his words. He and Daisy were returning from a futile search in the fields for any grains that might have survived the winter snowfall. There was enough snow on the ground to make slush on the lower roads, and enough that Daisy kept warmth from fire magic in her hands.

"You're fine without one?" Daisy asked once again as they walked.

He nodded, and a sneaky thought announced that if he held her hand it would warm him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. And still she held out her hand, which proved a juggle in his thoughts.

Whether he ought to accept the offer and tell his feelings right there, or do the vice versa; so now it was awkward silence in turn.

There was a roar above, and they looked up to see a glimmer of shiny scales against the sky. Daisy recognized it as a dragon quicker than Luigi, as her the magic in her hands became harsh, power pulsating between her fingers.

She ran in the direction of the dragon's flight, and fear went through Luigi in an icy shock as he ran after her. The cold wind bit into him, the slush threatening to make him fall. The words, "Dragon teeth only taken from dead ones," screamed in Luigi's mind, and he pushed himself harder, blood roaring in his ears.

"No, Daisy, _don't_!" he called, and he couldn't recognize his own voice.

There was no pause, and though faint Luigi could hear the grumble of the dragon above, a creature like that couldn't go down without expert witches and wizards present, with only the magic in her hands Daisy could _die_, a thousand outcomes raced through his head and he had gotten close, he was the only one that could stop her.

In desperation he grabbed her arm, but the momentum was not in their favor and they crashed hard onto the ground. Luigi's head bounced against the dirt path and for a split second he saw stars.

He leaned up to see that Daisy was already sitting up, her gaze downward and her hands shaking. Luigi looked upward and the dragon was now a dot in the sky.

"Are you okay?" Luigi asked, his voice quieter than he intended.

There was a shuddery breath, a confirmation that just made the unease in his heart deepen, and Daisy pushed herself up and began to walk.

His eyes flickered downward, a choice presented, and he got up and followed.

Her stride was quick at first, and slowed to a trudge when they made it to the forest that were absent of pink leaves. The familiar crunch of the path made Luigi pause as he wrapped his arms around himself. It did nothing to stave off the cold that was growing within him.

When he made it to the house the door was left ajar, and he went to look for her. She was lying on her bed, her back to the doorway.

Luigi said nothing and went to make dinner. The fire magic in the stove was dimmed to a pitiful flame, and he let the first bouts of anger at the situation work through as he placed wood into the fire. The second bouts seethed through the mixing and seasoning and basting. The last bits of anger were broiled and dissipated, leaving a calm that filled through his hollowed out mind.

He was left with two portions of dinner. He carried one to Daisy's room, and stood in the doorway as he mustered up the simple phrase.

"Dinner's ready."

There was no response, no stirring of any sort. Luigi left the meal on a table set nearby the doorway.

Luigi ate alone for the first in a long while, and a pang went through him at this realization. There was some solace in cleaning the plate, but the feeling returned when he went to bed with his troubled thoughts. There was only restless sleep.

The early morning brought coldness into Luigi's bones, and when he awoke he found that the blankets had been kicked off during the night. He remembered what had happened the previous day, and an uneasy weariness filtered and poisoned his mind.

Luigi went through the morning rituals with a lingering feeling of dread. The anxiousness squirmed up and gnawed hard at his ribcage, at the thought that this friendship would be forever changed and not for the better.

He steeled himself and headed to the kitchen to find a note on the dining table.

"I won't be home until dark."

Macabre images of dragons and charred bones and bloodied weapons flashed through his head at an alarming rate. A hasty plan pieced together, the main goal overall to find Daisy, and a piece of bread would suffice as breakfast in this panicked state.

Luigi locked up the house and ran, a wild sense of direction that was of no immediate help. In this state he slipped on the slush, making hard contact with his knees to the ground.

Mud stuck onto his shoes, and when Luigi pushed himself up he could see that blood seeping through the fabric of his pants. His knees stung as he began running again.

He was working only on intuition, and was only armed with calling out her name. All throughout the day the skies were devoid of her and her broomstick, and the ground was absent of her ready for battle with an exceptionally powerful foe.

All too soon, despite that the anxiousness made the day stretch for what felt like multiple days, the sky became a cluster of orange and red and dusk. By the time Luigi ran back to the house darkness had settled in, and there was a hope that rose up that Daisy had simply been waiting at home.

The hope extinguished when he opened the door and found that there was no trace of her anywhere.

Luigi paced, his thoughts burrowing and growing in his head loudly, and his eyes settled onto the stove. The fire magic within it was a healthy glow and he had that sliver of hope to cling to; and decided right then that he would search through the night for her.

Luigi wrenched open the door and Daisy was standing there, her eyes slightly widened and she stepped back. His heart painfully released a taut build-up of worry.

"I was going to look for you again," he said, the explanation tumbling into the cold air. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her, blocking out the cold.

Daisy's eyes looked down, to the flaked mud stains on his shoes and the dark, bloody stains near his knees, looking up at Luigi with an expression he couldn't place.

"I tried," Daisy said, a strange hitch in her breath, "I tried to find it, but I couldn't."

It sent coldness into his stomach, bringing up the terrifying images again, but she wasn't done speaking.

"What I did was stupid," she continued, "I didn't listen to you and I wanted to make up for it by finding that flower, to show that _you're_ more important to me than-"

She reached out, grabbed his hands and it was another element that made his heart race.

"I'm sorry," Daisy said, softly. "I'm sorry."

"I forgive you," Luigi replied when he could find his voice.

Daisy's shoulders slacked in relief. Her hands were so warm in his and there were images circling in fervor around his head. Neat handwriting in a sea of messy, cloth flowers dripping with beads, potions that smelled of honeysuckles and dreams of summer fields.

Luigi pressed a kiss to her cheek, quick and soft.

Daisy blinked; then a smile appeared on her face and a question in her eyes that Luigi nodded to as an answer. She cupped his face and kissed him and despite knowing it was going to happen he could feel his face fill with heat.

"That's a cute face," Daisy said when she pulled away, her thumbs brushing along his cheeks.

It was a brief moment of levity, as her own expression slipped into something melancholy as she reached out and embraced him.

"Thank you," Daisy said, muffled against his shoulder, "for everything."

Luigi returned the embrace and nodded against her shoulder. The peacefulness washed over him.


	5. Spring: The Kindness of You

The trees were adorned with pink leaves, and there was a warm breeze that tickled the stalks of the new plants in the garden.

Luigi tended to them, checked them and placed a hand to his stomach briefly when there was a faint growl. Daisy would be back soon and they would make lunch together, something like a picnic to befit spring.

He looked over the plants, checked them for any decay, and found that the inspection was a gateway to organize his own thoughts.

That day, in the cold of winter, gave internal warmth. There was a push, a realization that he was not to drown his words, and it made an unseen barrier between them dissipate.

Nothing much had changed in their daily lives; just the little things, when she kissed his cheek in the morning at breakfast, when helping her prepare potions and tidy books were intertwined with squeezing her hand for just a moment, or when it was time to go to sleep and he would hold her close and touch his forehead against hers as they said their good nights.

And though there wasn't any magic within him it paved his path to Daisy, and he could be grateful for that piece of goodness.

There was a call behind Luigi, and he could see the familiar broomstick glide down, a basket of potion ingredients resting on the front.

Daisy didn't reach the ground as she usually did; she made the broomstick hover a foot from the ground, and pushed herself up. She balanced on the thin stick with expertise, stepped over the handle of the basket and stood on her tiptoes at the end.

She jumped toward him and Luigi reached out to catch her. It was a slightly rough landing, as he had to step back when her weight fell against him, but she was in his arms and they were both unharmed.

Daisy got her bearings, wrapped her arms around him, and she laughed.

Luigi breathed out and smiled, and rested his chin on her shoulder as he drew her closer.

"Welcome home."

**A/N:**

**Originally posted on AO3 from March 6 2019 to March 25 2019**

**Thank you for reading this.**

**This was originally supposed to be a short one-shot but, uh, life finds a way. **


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